Puffer and crunchies

[olwiggum]

I can't seem to find what I'm looking for at the LFS. I've tried a few different stores with no luck. I got a snail from one of them, but I think it's too big.
How long will it take for my Puffer's beak to overgrow so that he won't be able to eat? He hasn't touched the feeders that I have put in there the last 2 days. They are a little bigger than the ones that I have been putting in there. That might have something to do with it.
HELP!

[Raydee]

What kind of puffer's are they? I am by no means a puffer expert but I do own them and they have been doing great for over a year now. My LFS usually has tons of small black colored snails that come in on the live plants that they just give me for my puffer's. I try to feed each of my puffer's two snail's a day to keep their beaks trimmed. I also keep a 20 gallon tank(FW) that has snail's breeding all the time. The puffer's at first just swam by the snail's but now they love them. I keep an eye on the puffer's beaks and I have never seen them overgrown. The last time I was at my LFS I saw a few South American puffers in a brackish tank that had there beaks so overgrown they could not open there mouths. When I told the guy that worked at the store that they needed their beaks trimmed and the fish needed to be in fresh water the worker just gave me a weird look and said that the fish were perfectly fine.

Until you can get live small snails that your Puffers can chew on I would at least get them some freeze dries shrimp that they can chew on. Before I knew about live snail's I few my puffer's just the freeze dried shrimp for years.

[olwiggum]

I have a Figure 8 Puffer. He ate a little bit of Krill that I put in there tonight. It also looks like his mouth is open quite a bit instead of closing like you mentioned.

[cdawson]

Try fresh clams from the seafood department of any supermarket. Your best source of crunchies is at the supermarket rather than the pet shop. Not to mention at the pet shop it'll be WAY more expensive. Feed him prawns still in the shell from the local supermarket, lobster claws, crabs legs, sea snails, you name it! the choices are endless.

[Pufferpunk]

If your puffer's teeth are already too long, no amount of crunchy foods will trim them & may actually cause them to break. The only way to fix long teeth is to trim them yourself.

See: http://puffer.proboards2.com/index.cgi?board=hospital&action=display&num=1057161492 (Trimming Puffer Teeth)